rebarbarised

What is cybernetics?

One book that made no sense at all to me was The Human Use of Human Beings, Cybernetics and Society, by Norbert Wiener.  Some say “Wiener’s has impacted the fields of computers and technology, engineering, biology, sociology, and a broad range of other sciences.”

As I said, I didn’t get it. So when I found myself lunching with cyberneticist Paul Pangaro in San Paolo last month, I pointed my pocket video in his direction and asked him, “What the hell is cybernetics and why should I care?”

Here’s what he told me:

via www.internettime.com

Nice introduction and grounding in cybertnetics, which Pangaro advises us to link back to its etymology in steering a ship in the wind and tides (and the need to adjust the steering in the light of feedback about how far the ship had been blown "off course"). Don't think of "cyber" in the sense due to William Gibson and cyberspace.

No pain, more gain? Research supports "less learning more often"

Many years back, I coined a phrase that neatly summarised my view on how to change current training design and delivery practice so that it can dramatically improve effective learning and performance. My phrase?

"Less learning more often" 

(click to read the full article)

Is it happening? Well, it's beginning to it seems. We are clearly recognising that the concentrated, content-heavy course delivery model often fails to transfer effectively to competent performance in the workplace. A new approach that favours little and often, campaign over course, interwoven activities is, counter to many people's current beliefs, far more effective. Not only that, new research at Northwestern University suggests this new way of training could reduce by at least half the effort previously thought necessary to make learning gains.

The research also may be the first behavioral demonstration of meta-plasticity, the idea that experiences that on their own do not generate learning can influence how effective later experiences are at generating learning.

 

via larsislearning.blogspot.com

Ed Halliwell on Mindfulness and Change

In the UK, psychologists have positioned mindfulness within the cognitive-behavioural tradition, and there are similarities – like CBT, mindfulness offers a practical set of skills that can help people relate more effectively to their thoughts and feelings. But whereas CBT is primarily a change-focused approach, mindfulness-based stress reduction and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy show us how to let go of struggling for change – their magic lies in enabling us making peace with who and where we are, right now, in this moment.

 

This attitude draws on ideas and practices that have several thousand years of history and tradition behind them, and which have usually been advocated as part of a system of meditative training designed to facilitate a deep transformation in the way we experience ourselves, others and the world. A fundamental premise of this training is that we are already basically OK – we don't need to 'try' to get better, we just need to learn how to uncover and be who we really are. Curiously, adopting this attitude of deep and radical acceptance often seems to produce some of the change we were seeking. So, there's a paradox - mindfulness can change us, and can lead to effective change,  but while this takes effort, it doesn't come from striving. Indeed, striving can actually be a form of self-aggression, which just creates more misery.

 

Mindfulness practice, then, is not so much a tool for self-improvement, but more a way of relating to our lives in a spirit of awareness, openness and kindness. Jon Kabat Zinn, creator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction programme, recently said that “mindfulness is not a technique. It is a way of being, a way of seeing, a way of knowing.” It nurtures a process of unfolding, of allowing things to settle, so that that well-being might emerge from coming into flow with how things are, even when that isn't how we'd like them to be. It's true that this kind of awareness can  be the ground for more skilful decision-making and behaviour - but when we can let go of the tension created by struggling to be better or healthier, the need for our problems to have a 'cure' – even if one were possible – no longer seems quite so relevant. And at that point we might start to feel a whole lot better.

via theschooloflife.typepad.com